bees
having settled upon his lips when in his cradle. (M6) He died in his
ninetieth year, the fourth of the ninety-third Olympiad, after having
survived Euripides six years, who was not so old as himself.

(M7) The latter was born in the first year of the seventy-fifth Olympiad,
at Salamis, whither his father Mnesarchus and mother Clito had retired
when Xerxes was preparing for his great expedition against Greece. He
applied himself at first to philosophy, and, amongst others, had the
celebrated Anaxagoras for his master. But the danger incurred by that
great man, who was very near being made the victim of his philosophical
tenets, inclined him to the study of poetry. He discovered in himself a
genius for the drama, unknown to him at first; and employed it with such
success, that he entered the lists with the great masters of whom we have
been speaking. His works(185) sufficiently denote his profound application
to philosophy. They abound with excellent maxims of morality; and it is in
that view that Socrates in his time, and Cicero long after him,(186) set
so high a value upon Euripides.

One cannot sufficiently admire the extreme delicacy expressed by the
Athenian audience on certain occasions, and their solicitude to preserve
the reverence due to morality, virtue, decency, and justice. It is
surprising to observe the warmth with which they unanimously reproved
whatever seemed inconsistent with them, and called the poet to an account
for it, notwithstanding his having a well-founded excuse, as he had given
such sentiments only to persons notoriously vicious, and actuated by the
most unjust passions.

Euripides had put into the mouth of Bellerophon a pompous panegyric upon
riches, which concluded with this thought: "Riches are the supreme good of
the human race, and with reason excite the admiration of the gods and
men." The whole theatre cried out against these expressions; and he would
have been banished directly, if he had not desired the sentence to be
respited till the conclusion of the piece, in which the advocate for
riches perished miserably.

He was in danger of incurring serious inconveniences from an answer he
puts into the mouth of Hippolytus. Phaedra's nurse represented to him, that
he had engaged himself under an inviolable oath to keep her secret. "My
tongue, it is true, pronounced that oath," replied he, "but my heart gave
no consent to it." This frivolous distinction appeared to the whole
people,